Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Excalibur (1981)

I’ve always found the legend of King Aurthur and the Knights
of the Round Table interesting because it is a layered story that branches out into many
themes. It covers many aspects of the human condition and augments how selfish
we can be, how imperfect we truly are and how uncontrollable human emotions can
be. This is exemplified in the story by the raging passions that permeate throughout
every generation portrayed in the film. From father to son, to grandson, wild
passions overtake logic and reason, leading most of the time to tragedy. It is
a story that urges us to control our passions and listen to reason, because
often times uncontrolled passions can destroy entire lives. This is
demonstrated through the character of Lancelot, one of King Arthur’s most
trusted knights. Lancelot falls in love with King Aurthur’s wife, Lady
Guenevere. In this story, Lancelot cares not for the catastrophic results of his
secret love affair, he only cares for satisfying his passions and lust. Every time
someone falls in love in Excalibur, the results are catastrophic. In many ways,
love, lust and passion are demonized in this story, which of course demonstrates
how this story is meant to propagate Christian ideals and mentalities, which of
course rubs me the wrong way. I’ve always hated how the bible demonizes sexuality;
at the end of the day sexuality is one of humanities strongest and most natural
traits. But what the hell, I still love this story, I always root for Merlin
the Magician who always comes off as the wisest of the bunch. He tells one of
the passionate lovers “You are not listening. Well, your heart is not. Love is
deaf as well as blind” Funny how it is Merlin, a follower of the old ways, a
magician, who ends up being the wisest character in the film.

This battle between the old religions and Christianity is at
the crux of Excalibur. This is a story of the battle between pagan religions,
which are centered around magic and old gods, and the new ways of Christianity which are centered around the teachings of the bible. It’s true, this story can be seen
as Christian propaganda in some ways, yet, I find it fascinating how it has
always demonstrated that Christianity wasn’t always there, it had to shoehorn its
way into society. Once upon a time things weren’t about Jesus and going to
heaven, a whole other slew of beliefs comforted people. Fascinating how
humanity has always needed that psychological support in life, something to make
us think we are not all alone in this universe. It’s the idea that something is
watching over them that humanity has always found themselves lulled into. At
one point in the story, when Arthur’s kingdom is in shambles and going through
a particularly rough time, the solution is to go and find “the holy grail” the
cup that Christ drank from during the last supper. Supposedly, this cup will
bring peace and happiness to the kingdom. But of course, we all know what this cup
really exemplifies: the idea that society needs religion and its established
morals to function properly. The idea
being that without Christianities values and ideals, we are lost. I of course
don’t agree with this side of the story because as the story demonstrates, no
matter how much you have Christ in your lives, human passions are always
stronger, the human side dominates. Mistakes are made, but these are mistakes
we can learn from. And call me old fashion, but I like to believe we are better
then that, I like to believe humanity is essentially good at heart, with the
exception of a few rotten apples. But, I also recognize that no matter how
idealistically we look at humanity, there’s always the ideal of what we want to
be, and then there’s what we are. A continually learning, evolving race of
beings.

This is also a story
that deals with politics and power, and the importance of learning to hone that
power properly, not abuse it. The sword,
Excalibur, represents power that when used wisely is meant to “unite all men”.
I thought it was so interesting how in this film, John Boorman’s Excalibur, King
Arthur actually breaks the sword in half because of his uncontrollable rage,
his abuse of power. Merlin tells him “You have broken what could not be broken.
Now hope is broken” showing once again what happens to people when they see
their leaders abuse power; a feeling of hopelessness takes over the land. This
is also exemplified in the story with King Uther, who was also obsessed with owning
the sword of power. At one point Uther tells Merlin “The sword, you promised
the sword! I need the sword to be king!” and Merlin tells him “And you shall have it,
but to heal, not to hack” letting us know that the true nature of power is to
bring peace to its people, not to obliterate them or abuse them which is what often
times happens with those in power, they end up using it against those they are
supposed to protect and serve.

The story of Arthur and his knights has been told many
times, each version focusing on whatever part of the story they want to focus
on, some focus more on the magical side of things while others focus more on
the romance between Guenevere and Lancelot, for example Jerry Zucker’s First
Knight (1995) is like that. It stars Richard Gere as Lancelot and Sean Connery
as King Arthur and it was more of a romantic story of how the passion between
Lancelot and Guenevere destroys a kingdom. One of my personal favorite versions
of this story has always been Merlin (1998). On this television mini-series Sam
Neil plays Merlin the Magician and Miranda Richardson plays The Lady of the
Lake and an extremely memorable Queen Mab. In this mini-series directed by
Steve Barron, the story is told from the perspective of Merlin himself; we
actually get to know the magicians origins. This time around, it’s his story
and since it’s a mini-series, the filmmakers really elaborated on the tale and
even expanded it. Merlin is an extremely fun film with great visual effects and
amazing performances from an equally great cast, highly recommend you check
that mini-series out. John Boorman’s
Excalibur is one of the best versions of the story as well, it’s an epic and
lush production, hell, it even gets a bit surreal with its dream sequences and
visions. But knowing Boorman, this shouldn’t surprise anyone. After all, this
is the director who gave us Zardoz (1974), one of the trippiest movies ever
made. On this version of the story Boorman chose to diminish the focus on the
magical aspects. If there is magic, it is a subtle thing and handled through
the use of practical effects, which is a breath of fresh air in this CGI
dominated world. A lot of the magical aspects were handled through the use of
imaginative lighting and old school effects, it was a smoke and mirrors type of
production.

I have to give props to John Boorman for the look of the
film, an aspect of it that got many accolades from critics when it was first
released. Excalibur also gave Liam Neeson his first shot at acting in a full
length feature film. Patrick Stewart also plays one of Arthur’s knights. And
speaking of the knights, they all wear these shiny armors that give them a god
like feel which by the way, is one of the other themes that the film also
touches upon, man thinking themselves gods end up needing Christ because they
couldn’t handle the power of godhood. As you can see, this is a story and a
film that touches upon many relevant themes dealing with the human condition,
but above all it augments the ugly side of human nature, our worst qualities, it
does this to hopefully stimulate us into being better human beings.

8 comments:

Great review Franco. This is probably my favourite version of the King Arthur myth. I love the kind of dream-like atmosphere to it all. All that green lighting everywhere. Apparently Boorman was trying to film Lord of the Rings but the rights fell through at the last minute so he used the sets and costumes for this!

I also really enjoyed Steve Barron's miniseries Merlin. Need to give that another watch some day.

This is true, Boorman was aiming to make his Lord of the Rings, but since he didn't manage to get the rights for that, he did this one instead, which was still a dream project of his anyways.

The green lighting is the kind of old school techniques he used to make things look "magical" or just a little off kilter, he also reflected a gold light off the metalic set built for the castle of Camelot.

Steve Barron's mini-series is awesome, I love that cast, Miranda Richardson is awesome in that one. Also we get Martin Short as Frik, Helena Bonham Carter as Morgana and Rutger Hauer as King Vortigern. Even Isabella Rosellini's in it as Nimue!

I still revisit this series every once in a while, I think its a great achievement, one of the best mini series Ive ever seen, along with The Oddyssey (1997) the one that starred Armand Assante as Odysseus, highly recommend that one if you haven't seen it Jack! It was produced by Francis Ford Coppola.

Helen Mirren was all kinds of awesome in this film and her portrayal of Morgana Le Fay is one of the best ever put on film. I haven't thought about this film in ages and am really curious to revisit it.

Excalibur is one of the last gasps of the once great British film industry (Time Bandits from the same year being another example), its strange why British made films have become so appalling and unwatchable in the last 3 decades when they used to be able to make superb films like this.

I disagree with your interpretation of the way the movie portrays love. To me, the film is stating that law and order are the true sources of trouble. I think Terry wanted to state that emotion and passion and love are to be followed, that the ancient britonic values should be embraced by the medieval society that Arthur built, and his inability to do so was his true downfall, because the celtic aproach to relationships and sexuality was a lot looser and not strucured around the rigid, cold-hearted system that supplanted it. This is also the message of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle, itself a work that is echoed in the music of Excalibur.